Page 17 of Sin & Secrets

“Rocco! Baby, please. It’s not what it looks like,” Danny runs up to me as she desperately tries to put her clothes back on.

I recoil when she tries to touch me. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You can fuck whomever you like. We’re over.”

“You don’t mean that, come on.” She shoves her head through what I assume must be Lazzaro’s T-shirt. “Claudio said you came to theCandelabratonight. You came to see me.”

Her words reek of desperation. It never mattered how beautiful she was, how perfectly symmetrical her features were, or how beautifully she sang; it always came back to the desperate desire to be more, to have more, to be wanted.

She was always desperate for something I would never be able to give her.

“Let me be very clear.” I step further into the room. The blood pounding in my ears intensifies the closer I get to that bastard Lazzaro. “We are done.”

“Rocco, please.” Her eyes brim with tears.

I tell myself it’s for her own good. That I’m saving her further heartache down the line. Because if she was worth my affection, I would be in an unstoppable rage right now. And I’m not.

“I’m not here for you.”

My words finally seem to connect. She backs away into the corner to where Teresa seems to be consoling herself with another line of coke.

My vision narrows the second I set my eyes on Lazzaro.

“Moretti!” he slurs, not bothering to sit up. “Come to join the party?”

I can’t help myself. I grab him by the shoulders and pin him up against the wall. Glass smashes as his legs wildly kick a table over.

“Lemme…lemme fuckin’ go!”

“You know why I’m here, Lazzaro?” I hiss in his ear.

“No.”

My first pounds into the wall, mere inches from his head. The plaster cracks, and blood trickles from my knuckles, but I don’t care.

“Think very fucking hard.”

To my surprise, Lazzaro’s hot breath hits me as he utters a low laugh. “Your daddy isn’t going to be very happy about this, you know.”

I let out a warning growl, but Lazzaro only laughs harder.

“It’s all right, ladies,” he calls over his shoulder. “He’s not going to hurt me. He’s not allowed to.”

“You think my father will go back on five years of work over your pathetic ass? You’re fucking delusional.”

Lazzaro squirms so he can look me in the eye. “But you’re too proud to be the first one to break that little treaty of yours.”

Maintaining my grasp on rational thought takes every ounce of my concentration. Because the truth is somehow even more infuriating than this entire situation.

This cowardly piece of shit is right. My father would do anything to get himself back into power.

I let Lazzaro go, and his body slumps to the floor with a satisfying crash. By the door, Martino looks over his shoulder, shooting me an expression that can only mean,If you don’t fuck him up, I will.

With a shake of my head, he stands down. There has to be a better solution here. I just need to think clearly for one goddamn minute.

“This is about Danny, isn’t it?” Lazzaro grumbles. “She wanted to be here.”

“That’s not true!”

Surprisingly, it’s Teresa who holds her chin up defiantly as she shouts the words. Behind her, Danny seems to have entered some kind of shocked fugue state.

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